


divine but not devout

by reflektions



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Beards (Relationships), Fake/Pretend Relationship, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8016187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reflektions/pseuds/reflektions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mac doesn't understand why this chick would ever want a beard. He thinks she looks perfectly fine without facial hair.</p><p>(Or - Mac gets a girlfriend. Dennis pretends he's not jealous.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	divine but not devout

**Author's Note:**

> Set in season 9, aka as current as you can possibly get while Mac and Dennis are still living in their own apartment. Title comes from "Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out" by The Antlers. Special thanks goes out to [infinitevariety](http://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitevariety/pseuds/infinitevariety) for beta-ing for me! You're the best. (I also wanna give a shoutout to my dear friends [Haley](http://archiveofourown.org/users/starryamethyst) and [Olivia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulenthusiast) for giving me endless support while I write this fic!)

Some nights, Mac doesn’t go to the bar. Well, not _his_ bar. Some nights, he sets aside a few hours for himself, away from the gang, because he read in some magazine that that kind of thing is “healthy” or whatever. When he’s alone, a place like Sudz only exists to bum him out, because at least when he’s there with Dennis, they can shamelessly enjoy it together. But spending time away from Dennis is definitely healthy, so tonight he’s at Louie’s Tavern, that place that just opened last year down the street from Paddy’s.

It’s a decent place—a lot nicer than Paddy’s, he has to admit. He’s seated at the bar, which is pretty clean, and noticeably does not have holes in the wood from repeatedly nailing down a certain board game that will not be named. The rum and coke he’s sipping on is his third, or maybe his fourth, and for the last fifteen minutes, he’s been trying to decipher what’s going on on the muted television hanging above him. Some kind of romcom.

He’s waiting for the bartender to finish up with someone else further down so he can order another drink when a woman sits down in the barstool next to him. She’s got a full head of curly red hair, freckles dotted all across her face, and a stud in her nose. Mac immediately feels self-conscious, sitting up a little straighter in his seat.

She must have noticed his preening, because she glances over at him, a small smile playing on her lips. She opens her mouth, maybe to say something, but then stops and looks down at her lap, playing with her fingers. Clearly, he’s not the only one who’s nervous here. It makes him feel a little bit more at ease.

“Hey, I’m Mac,” he says in an attempt to cut the tension between them, leaning over towards her. “What are you drinking tonight?”

The woman looks up at him, finally, beaming. “Uh, rum and coke, please. Thanks.” She seems to loosen up a bit, running a hand through her hair.

Mac whistles for the bartender’s attention. “Hey, can we get two rum and cokes over here?”

“Sure thing.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” says the woman, shaking her head. “I’m Ellen. I totally forgot to introduce myself.”

“Nah, it’s all good. So, uh, tell me about yourself?” It comes out sounding more like a question, a coded _Am I doing this right?_ Sure, it’s been a while, but Mac is hoping she doesn’t notice. He’s a pro, and real pros can always come out of retirement.

“Um, well…I do IT at the hospital. Kind of boring, honestly, but…” She shrugs. “It’s what I’m good at, I guess.”

“That’s cool, that’s cool.” The bartender returns with a rum and coke for each of them, and Mac nods his appreciation. “I’m not really too good at anything.”

“No? I don’t believe that. What do you do?”

“I, uh, own a bar.”

Ellen crinkles her nose, smiling. “What the hell are you doing here, then?”

“Well, Paddy’s doesn’t have the best looking crowd. Pretty girls like you aren't exactly regulars.” Mac doesn't know what he's doing, has no idea what he's saying; he hasn’t been this lucky with women in years. He chalks it up to the liquor; that's what's twisting his tongue, making him sound smoother than he actually is.

She’s definitely blushing, but she tries to play it cool. “Oh, you own Paddy’s? Isn’t that that—”

“Shithole bar, yep,” Mac says, though not unkindly. He’s used to it at this point, really.

“Not a shithole!” She laughs, stumbling over her words. “It’s not a—well, okay, I’ve never actually been there. So I wouldn’t know. But I’ve heard a lot of stuff about it. It sounds…pretty interesting.”

“Oh yeah? What have you heard?”

“Weren’t you guys named the worst bar in Philadelphia, or something? By that asshole reporter from the Inquirer? Dude was pretty harsh.”

Mac slams his hand down onto the bar excitedly. “He _was_ an asshole! Thank you! Shit, we might not be winning awards left and right, but Paddy’s is definitely not the _worst_ bar in all of Philly.”

“Oh, definitely not,” Ellen says. “That spot’s reserved for some other hellhole in this city.”

“Which one, then?”

“God, I don’t know. It would take me a real long time to go to every single bar in Philadelphia just to see which one’s the worst. But this one isn’t so bad.” Mac thinks she’s got it too—that liquid courage bubbling up inside the both of them. He wonders what they’d do without it.

“No? Why’s that?”

“Because I met you here.” She leans into him, one hand on her drink, the other on his own hand. Oh shit, it’s actually working. Mac thinks he might actually get lucky tonight.

But it doesn’t turn out exactly like he thought it would. Usually when Mac picks up chicks at a bar, it’s at Paddy’s, actually, so he tends to have the home court advantage, and usually they just head back to his apartment and he fucks her from behind and she leaves during the night while he’s still asleep and he tells Dennis all about it the next morning in grand and exaggerated detail. But for some weird reason, things feel different with Ellen. He doesn’t feel the need to kick it into high gear so they can get this show on the road and make sweet passionate love all night long. It’s unfamiliar to him, but he kind of likes it.

It turns out that after a couple of drinks, Ellen is a big talker, and it turns out that Mac doesn’t really mind listening. She tells him all about how she grew up outside of Philly, in the suburbs, and how much she hated it because she just wanted to be closer to the action. She tells him about how sometime after she graduated from Temple, she got a job offer—like, a _really_ good one. So good that when she casually drops how much she would’ve been making, Mac can barely pick his jaw up off the floor—out in California at a start-up, but even then, she couldn’t bring herself to leave Philly. By the end of the night, Mac knows that she has two younger sisters, and that she loves to play Dungeons and Dragons (he thinks she’d love Chardee Macdennis), and that she met George Michael once when she was twelve, and that she has a cat named Penny.

It’s only when they’re halfway back to his apartment, giggling and getting handsy in the backseat of an Uber like a couple of high schoolers, that he realizes he didn’t really tell her much about himself. He didn’t talk about how much he loves action stars’ physiques or what the Bible says about this or that, but—he figures it’s for the best. Girls go crazy for brooding, mysterious guys, the bad boy types who don’t give too much away. And after all, Ellen’s coming home with him tonight, so she must have liked something about it.

By the time they get back to his place, they’ve calmed down a little bit—maybe it’s the rush of cool nighttime air they’re hit with when they exit the Uber, or maybe it’s the fact that it’s nearing 2AM and Ellen keeps saying that she really doesn’t want to wake up any of the neighbors (Mac has never given a shit about his neighbors’ sleeping patterns, but he stays silent, because, well, he can’t really afford to mess this one up).

“You have a really nice place, Mac,” Ellen whispers as they cross the threshold into the apartment. She’s got her arm wrapped around his waist, warm and easy. She’s like, a whole head shorter than him, so her hair’s all up in his face, and her shampoo smells like coconuts. It’s nice.

“Oh, hey, thanks. I don’t think you have to whisper anymore, though, I don’t think Dennis is home.” He’s actually not too sure of the probability of this, but the place is unusually quiet and the lights in Dennis’ bedroom are off, so he might be right after all.

“You have a roommate?”

“Yeah, Dennis! He’s my best buddy. We’re like blood brothers, you know?” He pauses to kick his shoes off by the door. “Technically this is his apartment, I guess, ‘cause my name’s not even on the lease, but I do most of the cleaning around here, so.”

“Hmm.” Ellen glances up at him with a lazy smile on her face and that look in her eyes, the one full of lust that he thinks means _we should start banging soon_. So he takes her hand and leads her to his bedroom, and both of his palms are pretty sweaty so it takes him an embarrassing level of concentration to open the doorknob, and, shit, the crucifix above his bed is askew, but he’s hoping she’s too drunk to notice that, and, yeah, it’s time to get this show on the road.

Ellen practically jumps his bones the moment the door shuts behind them, kissing him like the building will spontaneously burst into flames if she doesn’t make a move. Mac responds at the exact same pace, his hands roaming all over her body, eventually landing on her ass. She’s made her way up to his hair now, which is kind of annoying, because it looked so good when he gelled it up this afternoon, but whatever, it was going to get messed up anyhow.

They stumble onto the bed, Mac landing on his ass and Ellen hiking a leg across him to straddle his lap. He’s a little confused, because usually by this point they’d both be naked, or at least in some state of undress, and he hasn’t so much as touched a titty yet. (It makes sense that he’s not hard yet, though—that’ll happen when they start getting into the hand stuff.) When his hand snakes up her bra, though, she flinches.

“Keep going,” she breathes, but Mac switches gears instead, slowing it down and going for her neck. She seems to like that better, especially when his mouth starts to leave marks, leaning her head back and closing her eyes for a bit.

“Hey, Mac?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“I, uh, need you to do something for me.” Mac nods and just keeps kissing her neck, silently praying she doesn’t ask him to go down on her. (It’s not that he doesn’t like it, mind you, he’s just gotten a lot of feedback over the years that his skills are…less than satisfactory. So he just doesn’t do it anymore.)

Ellen takes a breath, one that starts out deep and comes out sounding ragged. “I need you to not freak out when I tell you what I’m about to tell you.”

Mac pauses, drawing back to look her square in the eye, a hand planted firmly on her shoulders. “Is it—do you have a dick or something, cause, cause I’ve dealt with that before and–”

Ellen bites her lip, shaking her head back and forth so many times Mac's convinced it's going to fall off. “No. Um…Jesus, okay. I'm gay?”

“Oh,” Mac says. “Huh. So like… _gay_ -gay?”

“Uh…yeah. Yep. I’m gay, I’m a lesbian, I like women, whatever you…” She drags a hand down her face, sighing. “Wanna call it, I guess.”

Weird. Mac doesn’t know if he’s actually ever met a lesbian—if he’s ever known one that existed outside of porn, even—and yet here one is, still straddling him, her bra half-off, telling him that she’s into chicks and probably loves eating pussy and shit like that. Which is cool, because he can totally relate on that front. But on the other hand, it’s still a sin, and as nice as Ellen is, well, she’s definitely going to hell. And that’s a shame, really.

“So this means we’re not gonna bang.” It’s more of a statement than a question, really; at this point, he already knows the answer.

Ellen doesn’t even need to say it; she looks really sorry as it is. God, kind of like a puppy, if Mac had to put a name to it. “Yeah.” At this, something surges inside his chest, and it feels an awful lot like relief.

“But I have…a proposition. For you. If you want it.”

Mac’s eyebrows come together in confusion. “But you just said that we’re not—”

“No, it has doesn’t have anything to do with…sex, sorry.” Ellen carefully removes herself from Mac, positioning herself next to him instead, crossing her legs pretzel-style. “I was wondering if maybe you possibly wanted to be…like, my beard. Or something.”

“I mean…I guess if you _want_ , but you look…pretty good without facial hair.” He scratches his scalp. “Would be kinda weird to throw that into the mix now.”

She lets out a laugh. “No, no, no, uh…a beard is like—basically a beard is a gay person’s fake boyfriend or girlfriend. To convince everyone around them that they’re straight.”

“Oh, okay. But why is it called…why is it called a _beard_. That’s my question.”

“I mean, I dunno. It doesn’t make much sense to me either.” It’s quiet for a moment as they each turn the concept over in their minds. “That’s not the point though.”

Mac sighs. “Okay, fine, but…why do you need one in the first place? Who do you need to convince that you’re straight?”

“Shit, I mean…” She chews on her lip. “My family, my friends, my roommate, my coworkers. I guess it’s not so much that anyone thinks I’m gay, but I’m pushing thirty and I’ve never had a long-term relationship before. It’s starting to look suspicious, that’s all.”

“And you can’t just, like…date a girl?” Ellen shoots him a wounded look. “Sorry. Stupid question?”

“No, not stupid. I just…I can’t. At least not publicly. I can’t think of any scenario in which I could ever be out.” Her eyes dart to her feet. He feels really bad for her, but at the same time—

“What’s in it for me?”

She raises her eyebrows, a little shocked. “Really?” He shrugs, not really seeing the issue. “Okay, fair enough. Um…I mean, you’d be getting way more out of this than just one night of sex. Like a stable, long-term relationship. Even if it’s fake.”

“Yeah, but I’d be getting no sex at all.”

“That is a valid point, yeah. You’re right about that one.” She puts her head in her hands, and when she speaks again, it’s muffled. “I don’t know, you...seemed familiar, somehow, that’s why I thought I could do...” She gestures around his bedroom weakly. “...this...in the first place, I guess. Oh, I don’t know. It was just an idea. I’m grasping at straws, here, Mac...but you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, obviously.”

Mac doesn’t know what to say. He thought this was just going to be a one-time thing; Ellen’s a great girl and everything, but in all honesty, after tonight he was just planning to file her away in his mental Rolodex of bangs and move on to the next girl. This complicates things—and Mac has never been too good with complications.

What he does know, though, is that he’s tired. And if he’s not gonna be slamming ass anytime soon, he may as well go to bed. And, okay, even though he kind of wants to kick Ellen out on her ass for lying to him, his conscience is telling him to show some compassion. (Which is a strange feeling.)

So he pats the mattress beside him and asks her, “Why don’t you stay the night?”

“Are you sure?” When he nods, she beams back at him, and shit, she looks like she might cry.

They're lying side by side in his bed later, a little past three, when Mac asks, “Why me?” It pierces the awkward silence that's beginning to manifest between them. He wonders for a moment if she might have already fallen asleep.

“Oh,” Ellen says, taken aback. “You mean—”

“Like, why would you want _me_ to be your beard? Specifically.” Maybe that's a bit of a loaded question, especially at this hour and after so many drinks, but he's genuinely curious. And after all, he's never really been known for his tact.

She turns on her side, facing him now. “Um...well, I’ve tried before with multiple different guys. Online dating didn't really work—Tinder, OKCupid, I tried them all. But all the guys I ever went out with were too...God, I don't know. Too douchey. Too macho and self-obsessed. I didn't think they’d—”

“Whoa! I'm macho as _shit_ , what are you trying to say?” Mac immediately scrambles to sit up in bed, his temper rising.

“Can you let me finish?” In the pale glow of the moon that slips in through his blinds, he can see Ellen smirk. It’s amazing how patient she’s being with him.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

“I was gonna say…I didn’t think they'd understand. Like you do.” She places a gentle hand on his bicep. “Thank you for understanding, Mac.”

Mac’s not sure just how much he understands, though. Mac should really bust out his bible and show her the exact passage (Leviticus 20:13, thank you very much) that deems homosexuality a mortal sin. Mac should probably recoil in disgust and let her know just how reprehensible her lifestyle is. Mac should _definitely_ yell at her for leading him on and making him think he was gonna get bomb pussy tonight.

But then Mac remembers how long it's been since he's had a girlfriend—like, a _real_ girlfriend—especially in contrast to how often Dennis brings home girls. Mac thinks about how since it’s _technically_ not a real relationship, he can still bang as many other chicks as he wants because that wouldn’t _technically_ be cheating. Mac considers “love the sinner, hate the sin” and how he can maybe, probably help Ellen do away with her sinful urges and turn her straight, and then they can love each other for real. Mac knows a lot about sinful urges. He can help her out. She can help him out, too.

“Yeah, of course,” he says. It takes him another hour to finally fall asleep.


End file.
